Kali Linux is a Debian-derived Linux distribution designed for digital forensics andpenetration testing. It is maintained and funded by Offensive Security Ltd. It was developed by Mati Aharoni and Devon Kearns of Offensive Security through the rewrite ofBackTrack, their previous forensics Linux distribution.[2]
Kali Linux is preinstalled with numerous penetration-testing programs, including nmap(a port scanner), Wireshark (a packet analyzer), John the Ripper (a password cracker), and Aircrack-ng (a software suite for penetration-testing wireless LANs).[3] Kali Linux can run natively when installed on a computer's hard disk, can be booted from alive CD or live USB, or it can run within avirtual machine. It is a supported platform of the Metasploit Project's Metasploit Framework, a tool for developing and executing security exploits.[3]
Kali Linux is distributed in 32- and 64-bit images for use on hosts based on the x86instruction set, and as an image for the ARM architecture for use on the Raspberry Picomputer and on Samsung's ARMChromebook.[4]
Kali’s Relationship With Debian[5]
Kali Linux 1.0 is a Debian derivative based on Debian Wheezy. Therefore, most of the Kali packages are imported unmodified from the Debian repositories. In some cases, newer packages got imported from Unstable or Experimental, either because it improved the user experience, or because it was required to fix some bugs.
Forked Packages
Some packages had to be forked in order to implement some of the Kali-specific features but Kali strives to keep that number of packages to a minimum by improving the upstream packages when possible (either by integrating the feature directly, or by adding the required hooks to enable it without actually modifying the upstream packages).
Each package forked by Kali is maintained in a Git Repository with a “debian” branch so that updating a forked package can be easily done with a simple git merge debian in the master branch.
New Packages
Kali brings many new Debian packages, which are specific to the penetration testing and security auditing field. A large percentage of these packages are free according to Debian’s Free Software Guidelines and Kali intends to contribute those to Debian and to maintain them directly within Debian.
To be noted though is that in the latest version of Kali linux, bugs such as Wireless adapter not being detected have been fixed and issues like drivers compatibility have also been fixed.
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